Let’s goooooo! Photo: Mammoth Mountain
Opening Day at one of California’s most popular ski destinations is less than 50 days away — November 14, 2025. It’s a day that is typically fueled entirely by stoke, because, let’s face it, most places aren’t exactly blanketed with snow before Thanksgiving. Well, there may still be six weeks to go before that first lift spins in the Southern Sierra but a little bit of video from the top of Mammoth Mountain just threw every powder hound’s hype through the roof…on September 30th.
“What a nice surprise to wake up to,” the social media team wrote on Tuesday morning, showing off the first snow of the upcoming season. “And no it’s not open yet.”
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Is it deep? No. Will it stick? Probably not. Does this mean winter is going to come early and stay late? That’d be awesome, but no, this is just fall in Mammoth. Early forecasts can always vary. Powderchasers pointed out in their North American winter forecast that atmospheric rivers determine the fate of winter conditions throughout the Sierra range, with the Northern Sierra typically experiencing a near-normal winter during weak La Niñas like the one predicted.
“A north-favored storm track in weak La Niña and negative PDO years can leave the southern Sierra wanting, while the MHW adds volatility to snow levels,” Powderchasers wrote in mid-September. In short, they warn us of what we already know: expect a boom or bust winter.
Mammoth Mountain is usually a safe bet to get a long season either way. Closing day earlier this year was June 15. The 2023-2024 season wrapped up a couple weeks earlier on May, 27, 2024. And of course, the wild and intense record-breaking 2022-2023 La Niña winter saw 718 inches of snow, 64 snowfall days, and Mammoth stayed opened through spring and well into the summer months, finally closing on August 6, 2023.
